Ramadhan Prep

Alhamdulillah, ramadhan will be here again. This time for me, it was quiet difficult in term of preparation, but in some way it's help to cool down my busyness. Which mean, I got less vesitors than expected because of my condition as summer usually mean, our place is free B & B! Oh well, not just breakfast, but lunch, dinner and tour guide! So, in other way I had plenty time to reflect myself and get into some proper planning and get myself, my mine and the kids ready for it.

Last year at this time, my mum, dad and aunty just fly back to Malaysia after three and half weeks visit which saw us running around like mad and crazy with my business and also my aunty and parents got plenty of things to ship back as well from their three weeks visit. So, couple of days left before they went back is not really enough for me to actually make some proper preparation.

This time, with the will of Allah, I just realise this incident of mine, is giving me plenty of rest which I guess my body really need. As every thing happen for a reason, I guess it's a time for me to sit back, rest, train kids at the same time and got some plenty time to look after myself and plan for ramadhan.

At the moment, we had talk about ramadhan from time to time. We already start reading the virtues of ramadhan. It's very important to remind ourself of the virtues of ramadhan , so we will try to get out the most of it. To start read it 10 days before is important to prepare our mind to reflect towards the coming ramadhan.

I am not someone who like proper planning like I said now and again. But, to say not to plan at all is not me. I like to see what lay in front of me, roughly and just tailor it according to our flexible journey. I think I would love to have proper plan and schedule if I am only on my own. Although hubby said that planning is important, I don't think it will work well in term of family with grown up, homeschool plus our flexible journey with unexpected guest and uncertainty. It will cause too much stress if not all, but one of us in the family and I don't like that. Being a muslim, one of the things is that we should not be in stressful and pressure, feel sad and anger because planning can take over our life to some extend. This is how I feel. Not that we shouldn't plan, but to plan way in the days or weeks for me can always put strain on someone and somewhere. So, take one thing at a time, not too much plan out will leave us more closer to Allah swt. Leave us with less pressure, less stress and enjoy the time, the relationship, our kids and around us more than when we out our life in just one piece of paper and follow every step of it.

Of course people are different. Hubby of course cannot understand about my unplanned. But, I had so mush stress and pressure with too much of his 'need to organise' but than had to pick up the piece of paper he lay on everywhere. But, I don't mind if I had enough money to bring ikea into our house! But, still I don't think it will help at the end of the day. Especially with all the journey we been through, I think I was close to Allah with my loose plan. I think I get close to Allah swt this way. But, unplanned did not mean that we just live our life without a rules and schedule. If we run our life according to the commandment of Allah, wanted or not we will live according to the plan and schedule. As we follow the prayer time, automatically our life just schedule it self. Alhamdulillah.

So I was trying to search for ramadhan plan, but not a tight ramadhan plan, just to help the kids to see what is lay in front of them. As days get longer, kids will have a long day to go through with. To having something to look for is important to help them with the long fasting day.

At the moment, I had print out :

Ramadhan Battle Plan for me, MS and PS

Ramadhan Journal for S and AS

And as I cannot do the cooking, and if I do it , I can only used my left hand and still very struggle to use my right hand even to cut the onion, so I will need someone to help me in the kitchen. So I will need Menu planner. As at the moment PS and MS will rotate doing the cooking, while S and AS usually help with the dish. But as S are very good in dessert, she will than be busy and will be our main source for making dessert and also eid cookies for this year. I cannot see myself at all to make eid cookies, but I am pretty sure the kids will not be left out. Especially we will have guests and possibly more guests than before. As I cannot be super quick with my situation where I can always cook one hours before break time or make 500 to 1000 cookies a day, I will need to plan out as we all know ramadhan will be here for the whole month. Although we do not know what if we going to live or die until ramadhan come and finish, at least we had bee command and told by out beloved Prophet saw about the coming month of ramadhan.

So, here is where I print out the menu planner. This time I will have to push myself to follow the schedule as I cannot drive far as to get halal meat. Also I will have to still go to Hospital once a week and have appointment with Consultant two and half week into ramadhan. But, as the time for fasting is long, I am also put into consideration to be able to twist the menu we plan. I'm already got in my mind without plan out on paper what to cook on first couple of days in ramadhan. I'm already bought meat which been prepare according to my menu plan in my head. So, I do get the plan running already without having anything in writing. For some reason, when I put it down, I felt so much pressure on it. May be I just phobia with writing plan!!

Another things that we will do in next couple of days is having a family meeting, usually between me and kids only. Yes, I don't include hubby as he just really follow the flow. It's not that he follow me every time on every thing, but he know that what ever happen I will be the one who will take over, jump in, and pick up whatever the pieces left. So for him, he left them completely to me to handle inside and outside the house. Only as my disability at the moment, I need him to jump in, so I have to keep reminding him on what to do from time to time. He don't mind at all to be 'excluded' in our family meeting, as long as he been told what going on and have a briefing on what he need to do. As all the kids had smart phone, which I didn't intend to at first. But, PS and MS want something out of their pocket money and I know that they deserve it so much. So, they both got monthly contract as it was better deal with free minutes and sms. S and AS just got old mobile phone we had as I had upgrade mine and hub is also wanting to upgrade his. As for that , I thought that I will get the kids to put in their calender on what needed to be done on certain time and day, so they will have alarm going on to remind them before the time start. So, we will have some meeting about this in later time before ramadhan start, Insya Allah.

I did not prepare much of the food as I thought I wanted to. I was thinking to made some samosa our self and couple of other things to freeze them. But I though it was easy to just bought the frozen one, not that expensive and save time. Fasting time is long this year, therefore we not be able to consume much food anyway. I probably thinking of making 'karipap' either before ramadhan start or first week of ramadhan. It's a long day anyway. Even with PS or MS cooking, it won't leave us hours and hours in the kitchen. It's usually around 2-3 hours including cleaning. That is for the food enough for iftar and suhoor. PS usually quicker. Also with PS, I don't have to actually monitor her but just told her what to do and what to cook and give her instruction which she will write down. So, it wasn't that big deal and I like eating fresh food than frozen one! Especially main meal and the one cook simple and quick.

So, that is our ramadhan prep. How is your? It's not long before ramadhan on our door step. Hopefully this ramadhan will bring more barakah into our life. I will try to share our day to day ramadhan as I can. Insya Allah.